{"id":151,"date":"2020-12-27T23:29:24","date_gmt":"2020-12-28T04:29:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/art574-yixu\/?p=151"},"modified":"2021-01-07T14:37:11","modified_gmt":"2021-01-07T19:37:11","slug":"object-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/art574-yixu\/2020\/12\/27\/object-8\/","title":{"rendered":"Object #8"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kawada Kikuji \u5ddd\u7530\u559c\u4e45\u6cbb (b. 1933)<\/span><\/p>\n

The Japanese National Flag<\/em>, 1960, printed 1973<\/span><\/p>\n

Gelatin silver print<\/span><\/p>\n

image: 18.5 x 24.1 cm. (7 5\/16 x 9 1\/2 in.)<\/span><\/p>\n

sheet: 30.3 x 37.9 cm. (11 15\/16 x 14 15\/16 in.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Princeton University Art Museum. Gift of Robert Gambee, Class of 1964<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 Kikuji Kawada<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

This photograph documents a discarded Japanese National Flag (Hinomaru<\/em> \u65e5\u306e\u4e38) on the ground after the 1960 student demonstration against Japan\u2019s Security Treaty renewals with the United States.[1]<\/a> As indicated by the footprint in the lower right corner of the picture, the crumpled flag was probably trampled by the student protesters during the demonstration. The emblem that had once encouraged numerous spirited soldiers during the war now became the sign of a new political crisis in the 1960s. Once entitled \u201cmap,\u201d this photograph appeared as a central piece in Kawada\u2019s solo exhibition The Map<\/em> at the Fuji Photo Salon in 1961. In a way that is both documentary and symbolic, the photograph of the wrinkled flag maps out the political unrest during a period of rapid economic recovery that, however, looks back on the turmoil in the wartime.<\/span><\/p>\n

The way that this photograph of the Japanese National Flag is presented in relation to other pictures in the photobook The Map<\/em> creates a dynamic and provocative intertextual play that further complicates and fragmentates the viewer\u2019s perception of the photographed subjects, thus creating a narrative that is neither linear nor stable. The photograph of the Japanese National Flag is presented in the photobook The Map<\/em> in a provocative way in relation to other pictures. In the photobook, the photograph of the flag is printed on two facing centerfold pages with a kannon-biraki<\/em> fold that splits the flag from the middle (Fig. 8-1). The double-page photograph can be opened out to unveil a four-panel horizontal image of the A-Bomb Dome (Fig. 8-2). Strong light sheds through the skeleton of the structure, and the resulted round, large light spots recall the light created by the exposure of the atomic bomb. As the viewer folds the four-leaf pages back and turns to the next two facing pages, one sees a photograph that captures the geometric pattern of shadow and light on the wall of the A-Bomb Dome (Fig. 8-3). This abstract rendition of the structure distances the photographic image from the original location and subject matter of the Dome. This strategy of abstraction is brought into even a higher point in the photograph of the same subject matter on the next two pages with a kannon-biraki<\/em> fold in the middle (Fig. 8-4). The photograph\u2019s high contrast between the light sky and the Dome\u2019s dark skeleton almost turns the image of the Dome into a flattened graphic pattern. Through technical adjustment of exposure, shutter speed, and aperture and the fragmentation of the views of the Dome, Kawada \u201cextract something abstract by cutting details from something concrete.\u201d [2]<\/a> This continuous tendency towards abstraction eventually reaches the peak in the next photograph printed on the four-panel page\u2013\u2013a half view of the Rising Sun Flag (Kyokujitsu-ki<\/em> \u65ed\u65e5\u65d7) flown by the Imperial Japanese Navy during the war and by the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force after 1954 (Fig. 8-5). The abstracted sun rays of the naval ensign bear a rough visual resemblance to the skeleton of the dome against the bright sky and resonate semantically with the sunspots in the previous two photographs.<\/span><\/p>\n